1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body structure of a vehicle, such as an automobile, and more specifically to a vehicle body structure in a region around a wheel house for a rear wheel and rearward of the wheel house.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is commonly known, in a vehicle, such as an automobile, a sidewall of a vehicle body (hereinafter referred to as “body sidewall”) is formed with a wheel house in a position where a rear wheel is disposed, and a rear suspension system is mounted to the wheel house. Thus, during running of the vehicle, load along an approximately upright direction would be repeatedly transmitted from the rear suspension system to the wheel house.
In the vehicle, it is desired to allow the load transmitted from the rear suspension system to the wheel house to be efficiently distributed over the body sidewall for purposes such as reduction in deformation of the vehicle body and improvement in steering stability. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-331959 discloses an automobile rear body structure intended to allow upward thrust load from a rear suspension system to be effectively distributed by a simplified structure.
Meanwhile, in a specific type of vehicle, such as a minivan or station wagon, a rear wall of a vehicle body is formed with a large opening which is covered with and a lift gate is arranged to cover the opening. In this type of vehicle, deformation of the vehicle body is more likely to occur in a body sidewall in a rear portion of the vehicle body, and it is therefore desired to further improve the torsional rigidity of the body sidewall.
During running, this type of vehicle also undergoes load repeatedly transmitted from a rear suspension system to a wheel house along an approximately upright direction. Thus, in the region of the body sidewall around the wheel house formed in the rear portion of the vehicle body and rearward of the wheel house, how to allow the load imposed on the wheel house to be transmitted to the body sidewall so as to improve the torsional rigidity of the body sidewall becomes important.